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Welcome back to George vs the Listener Crossword. Settle in and let me tell you a story…

This summer I had a go at serious(ish), regular, paid acting. I’ve always thought of myself as a writer primarily, a stand-up and improv comedian second, and an actor third. Over the past year or so, I’ve been recommended by a lot of friends that I need to do theatre. It certainly adds lines to the resume while you wait around for writing opportunities to come up.

So there I was, in a semi-pro community production of “Oklahoma”, playing Ali Hakim, sleazy peddlar, and to me the true hero of the show. Here I am, administering a “Persian Goodbye” to Ado Annie.

Why do I mention this? My character, while he chews the scenery immensely, is not on stage all that much, in fact I timed it and I don’t appear until 20 minutes into the play. So that gave me a lot of dressing-room sitting down time. Where I had to be quiet, since noise from the dressing room could be heard on stage.

In cases like this, obsessive crossword solving is the best addiction to have!

OK – things have gotten crazy busy, so here’s a bookmark post – check back tomorrow for the rest of the story, but I rather enjoyed this puzzle!

Well the final part ended up being a week later, but I wanted to note a few fun things about this one…

The first part I noticed was that the letters in the clashes came together to form words – that helped with placing them a lot.

Googling BAND, LEAGUE, CARBUNCLE was enough to lead to the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. This may upset the purists, but for all the Listeners I’ve done with a Sherlock Holmes theme, I am yet to read any of the books.

The titles of the adventures all had colours in them, which was useful in finding the FIVE ORANGE PIPS

I had the version that I scanned finished by the middle of the second act! So definitely on the easier side (and with a theme extremely amenable to being searched on a smartarse phone), but I enjoyed the puzzle from start to finish!

Thanks, Nutmeg, and I can call this one a Victory to George

2015 tally: 23-1-5

Feel free to tell me that I really need to stop reading rubbish, and see you next… well in a few minutes because I’m moving on to it now, when Wan gives us a bit of the other in letter form